THE BLIND ASSASSIN

Margaret Atwood’s latest Booker Prize-winning novel is a mystery nested within a love story, nested within a century-spanning exploration of a woman’s life. These layered stories within stories are told through a memoir, a novel, newspaper articles, and pulp science-fiction tales, and are expertly revealed by narrator Margot Dionne. She fully inhabits octogenarian Iris Chase Griffin as her Canadian cadences shift subtly from mature Iris to the younger self she’s remembering and all the others who have peopled Iris’s life. Dionne’s narration is hypnotic and moody, mapping out Atwood’s social and emotional geography, the many little hurts and betrayals, and the hopes. Listeners will find themselves piecing together the clues, guessing at truths, but the rewards are to be found in the layering of details and the skill of the storytelling. J.M.D. 2001 Audie Award Finalist for Solo Female Narration. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/ SEP 01]